In a controversial speech hosted by the virulently anti-Israel Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn on January 15 in the British Parliament, the Palestinian Ambassador to the U.K. Manuel Hassassian announced that it was his personal belief that Israel refuses peace, and “nurtures on conflict.”

But that was just the run-of-the-mill Palestinian party line. was not the zinger that day.

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Here’s the zinger:

According to the website The Commentator—conceived by one time foreign correspondent for The Times in Moscow Robin Shepherd and pro-Palestinian activist Raheem Kassam in 2010—the Ambassador also remarked:

“We, the Palestinians, the most highly educated and intellectual in the Middle East, are still struggling for the basic right of self-determination… You know I’m reaching the conclusion that the Jews are the children of God, the only children of God and the Promised Land is being paid by God! I have started to believe this because nobody is stopping Israel building its messianic dream of Eretz Israel to the point I believe that maybe God is on their side. Maybe God is partial on this issue.”

And then as the logical conclusion of the above, The Commentator reported that “Manuel Hassassian reportedly told an audience of around 100 people that ‘there is no two state solution.’”

The event was organized by the very controversial Palestine Solidarity Campaign and hosted Labor’s Shadow Justice Minister Andy Slaughter, as well as Lib Dem MP and former government minister Sarah Teather.

Of course, given the organizers and the source, this was all said in bitter, bitter irony (and, I must add, for an angry enemy, the ambassador has been gifted with a fabulous sense of humor, dark or otherwise).

So much so, that the event took place, it was photographed and reported – and no one, to the best of my understanding, has made a big deal out of it. The Jerusalem Post reported the story dutifully, a couple Gulf sources did as well, and several days later, JTA reported it – but it certainly did not get any big, newsy, flashy reaction, certainly not from the good folks in Ramallah and Gaza. We got to it a week late—we plead Elections, of course—all of which means that no one is really interested.

But they should be, because this is an emerging trend, folks, and a potentially dangerous one at that. Just the other day, British Foreign Secretary William Hague has warned that the chance of a two-state solution in the Middle East peace process is “slipping away.” Of course, he added that “the clock is ticking, with potentially disastrous consequences for the peace process.”

You noticed, he did not say “potential disaster for peace,” only for the “peace process.”

Even he doesn’t really believe there’s going to be peace any time soon – but it somehow makes him feel calmer when Israelis and Palestinians are sitting together talking about getting peace, then breaking the talks because they have nothing meaningful to say on this matter – and by meaningful I mean something the other side agrees with.

According to The Commentator, Hassassian questioned Israel’s future by remarking on the growing Muslim population in the world, as well as America’s waning support for the Jewish state:

“Israel will never continue to exist as a pariah state. Israel could never continue to fight wars against the Palestinians, against the Arabs and the Muslims. The United States is not going to be Israel’s strategic ally for time immemorial. And today we have 1.5 billion Muslims. In 20 years we will have 2 billion. And those 2 billion, forget about politics, from a religious perspective will not allow Israel to continue desecrating their religious rights (in Jerusalem). And then what?”

OK, that’s not news. If those billions of Muslims either had the inclination—meaning they would stop murdering each other long enough to even contemplate the plight of a couple million Suni Palestinians—or the means, they would have done something about it.

I do note a similar line of thinking between Minister Hague and Ambassador Hassassian: they both would like the U.S. president to drop everything and ride Israel hard all the way to ridding the world of its pesky 500 thousand settlers:

Hague said on Wednesday that he would be telling the new Obama Administration that “this should be the highest priority for US foreign policy, even given all the other threats we face.”

Yori Yanover has been a working journalist since age 17, before he enlisted and worked for Ba'Machane Nachal. Since then he has worked for Israel Shelanu, the US supplement of Yedioth, JCN18.com, USAJewish.com, Lubavitch News Service, Arutz 7 (as DJ on the high seas), and the Grand Street News. He has published Dancing and Crying, a colorful and intimate portrait of the last two years in the life of the late Lubavitch Rebbe, (in Hebrew), and
two fun books in English: The Cabalist's Daughter: A Novel of Practical Messianic Redemption, and How Would God REALLY Vote.

the two state solutionis not slipping away at all. What never existed can't.
slip away. There is only a one state solution. The one mandated by the League.
of nations in 1922. All of "Palestine" east of the river jordan to the arabs.
and all land west to be a homeland for the Jews. The U.N. incorporated
this mandate when it formed but now choose to ignore their own decrees.

The problem is that no country in the Eastern Hemisphere offers automatic birthright citizenship other than Pakistan. You can be tenth generation born in Syria yet not be Syrian. (Israel has the same law.)

The inclusion of Jesus in invocations is quite common as it was in the invocation for president Obama. When I was a young Rabbi, I would complain. I have come to the conclusion that this is a CHRISTIAN COUNTRY and those offering the prayers which include Christ or Jesus , just do not care what the rest of us think.. I have bowed out of the local interfaith Holocaust service, because it was a custom to include Hatikvah at the end, but now some Christian groups object as they support the Palestinians and the Muslim Imams would either sit or leave during the Hatikvah. Perhaps interfaith Holocaust programs no longer make sense, at least to me. I do not need the stress of seeing disrespect being afforded to Israel and nor do I wish to compromise by leaving Hatikvah out. This is a personal choice and I DO NOT ADVOCATE ANYONE NOT PARTICIPATING IN ANY INTERFAITH HOLOCAUST SERVICE. I INTRODUCED INTERFAITH HOLOCAUST SERVICES IN 1974 AND WAS ONE OF THE FIRST IF NOT THE FIRST TO DO SO. This was a difficult decision for me based on personal principle. The interfaith Holocaust memorials started as well intentioned way for the Jewish people and other groups to pause and reflect on man's capacity to perpetuate unbelievable cruelty against his fellow and to commiserate as a group and others, with the Jews and hopefully prevent this nightmare from reoccurring. Over the years it was understandably modified to include other victims of genocidal mass killings, though these mass killings were not really analogous, as the Nazis were obsessed at not just killing Jews as a competing group, but Hitler desired to eliminate our creed and it's pervasive influence on humanity, particularly Christian doxy. As a result of Muslim participation and twisted liberalism, this is morphing into a twisted canard where Israel is being blamed for perpetuating ethnic killings against the Palestinians as the Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis. One can understand the Islamo-Nazis belief system with a quote from the Talmud. We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are. RABBI DR. BERNHARD ROSENBERG, CHILD OF Holocaust survivors and a refugee born in a D.P. camp

I AM CALLING FOR A NATIONAL BOYCOTT BY JEWS OF ANY INTERFAITH HOLOCAUST PROGRAM WHERE HATIKAVAH IS INTENTIONALLY EXLUDED DUE TO MUSLIM PRESSURE OR CLERGY WHO SUPPORT THE PALESTINIAN CAUSE. PLEASE GET THE WORD OUT. RABBI DR. BERNHARD ROSENBERG